The Messianic Fervour Of Anti-Racism

The Unwavering Devotion Of The New Cult

This is a guest post written by a teacher from Hamilton

The education community has never been a stranger to fads. To name but a few, educators have had to pioneer the “arts” of cooperative learning, discovery math, emotional intelligence, learning styles, inquiry-based learning, D2L, 21st Century Fluencies, multiculturalism, phonics vs whole language, wellness, “Assessment OF, FOR and AS Learning” and, most recently, “Anti-Racism”.

As each iteration of a new gospel is delivered with messianic fervour, the edu-bureaucrats cite copious amounts of “research” that support their unwavering devotion to a new cultish fad.

Anti-Racism is not an exception.

The unfortunate death of George Floyd sparked worldwide condemnation, but the Canadian Left’s appropriation (I am aware that Leftists cannot be accused of anything they accuse others of) of American cultural problems, including antebellum US racial policy, the Civil War, reconstruction and the Civil Rights movement, has now made American racial history a Canadian problem.

Following from this is Bill 67 Racial Equity in the Education System. While many boards, including Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa and Peel, have pre-empted Bill 67’s ‘Anti-Racism’ provisions with facile-deconstructionist-critical-race theory brainwashing ‘lessons’ designed to evoke anger and guilt, Bill 67 is a special kind of edu-nonsense.

Embedded in Bill C-67’s bill is the use of the word “subconscious”. This is a Kafkaesque legal term because it’s nearly impossible to imagine how a judge determines what someone is subconsciously thinking unless a group of bureaucrats have been ‘trained’ to spot this specious behaviour.

How do you train someone to spot the subconscious? You tell them their job, and subsequent promotions, depend on it. You need not worry about school boards spending millions in arbitration when they malign, impugn and discipline teachers for imaginary crimes; unions are too busy proving their Anti-Racist bona fides to worry about teachers being disciplined over subconscious racism.

Bill 67 first emerged from Laura Mae Lindo, the NDP’s Anti-Racist government critic. Andrea Horwath, acknowledging the importance of providing Board supervisors with the ability to fine and terminate unionized teachers for ‘subconscious’ bias, is standing steadfastly behind her Anti-Racist critic. The messy business of Horwath actually resigning her leadership so someone racialized can assume the mantel is a statement best left unsaid.

The NDP is no stranger to polarizing the Ontario electorate. I expect a certain type of sanctimonious sophistry from a party that has now abandoned the working class in support of their more refined, but underemployed, humanities-degree urban elites.

But, pray, tell me, why in the name of Global Warming has the Ford government embraced Bill 67? What machinations are party advisers privy to that the rest of us aren’t?

Ford will never win the support of education unions. If he/him provided an immediate 10% pay increase, the month of June off and a shorter work day, the education unions would still support anyone but Ford because a classroom, somewhere, had an old HVAC filter and, damn it, this just proves that Ford hates teachers (never mind the fact that Board’s all across Ontario are responsible for servicing their own filters).

The educators left in this profession who are self-censoring, hiding, calling in sick on PD days and inwardly laughing at the number of administrators who have recently ‘discovered’ their non-white heritage, have no political home. They are being abandoned by the very party that should be celebrating Ontario’s past. No jurisdiction is perfect, but we will never solve racism through ‘subconscious’ witch-hunts.

Once Bill 67 passes, educators will no longer feel comfortable providing a passing mention to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. Anti-Racist activists already deem conservative voters as “Nazis” so providing them with the cudgel of “subconscious” racism will further marginalize and silence the small percentage of PC supporters currently hiding in Ontario classrooms.

One other passing political thought: does Bill 67 endear Ford to his base outside of the 416? Does anyone think that a farmer in Norfolk or Gananoque wants their children sent to school with Anti-Racist agitators hiding under the title of Teacher?

I remember the halcyon days of 2018 when a campaigning Ford said “schools have been turned into social laboratories and our kids into test subjects for whatever special interests and so-called experts that have captured Kathleen Wynn’s ear”. With Bill 67, Ford is now rewriting his own script: “We support schools being used as social laboratories and our kids being test subjects for whatever special interests and so-called experts that have captured the NDP’s ear”.

It’s too bad Ford’s own ears are too deaf to hear it.

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Please sign the petition to Stop Bill67.